What Does A Digital Marketing Manager Do?
A digital marketing manager is responsible for planning and executing a digital marketing strategy to promote a brand, products, or services on all available digital marketing channels. The role also includes supervising the other experts working in the digital marketing team.
In a typical scenario, the digital marketing manager heads the digital marketing department. Within the department, there is a manager for each digital marketing channel.
It’s the responsibility of the digital marketing manager to ensure that all departments work towards the same goals.
Digital Marketing Manager Responsibilities
Some of the daily tasks a digital marketing manager must perform day to day are:
Search Engine Optimization
Design, plan, and execute SEO campaigns to increase rankings and traffic from search engines. This is a very important element of a digital marketing strategy, and in the absence of a dedicated SEO manager, the digital marketing manager needs the necessary skills and knowledge to manage all SEO-related tasks.
Content Marketing
In the digital world, you need content in any form (text, images, video, audio, etc.) because you cannot do anything online without content. The question is what kind of content you need, who will produce the content, and what the topics, titles, content length, etc., are.
These are the typical questions that the content marketing manager has to answer, and if there is no content marketing manager (which is the case for most companies or agencies), then it’s the duty of the digital marketing manager.
Social Media Marketing
Social media is a great tool and a fantastic way to promote your online store or business, but how do you decide which social networks to use, how do you set goals, and what kind of content you publish?
What is a successful social media campaign, and how do you manage your followers? The digital marketing manager must answer questions with the social media manager or social media experts.
Paid Advertising
PPC advertising, whether on Google, Facebook, or other platforms, is critical for almost all types of digital marketing campaigns.
Big organizations or digital marketing agencies are likelier to have a dedicated PPC Manager and a Facebook Ads expert to handle these tasks.
For small businesses or solo entrepreneurs, that’s not the case, so it’s the job of the digital marketing manager to run and optimize PPC campaigns.
Email Marketing
Email marketing does not likely have a dedicated email marketing manager unless you use email in more advanced ways than sending newsletters and subscription offers.
It is the job of the digital marketing manager to design the email marketing strategy for a company that is in sync with the overall digital marketing strategy.
Mobile Marketing
Mobile is no longer an option, so every online business should have a mobile marketing strategy.
This may involve providing users with a mobile-friendly website or even developing mobile applications for different markets (Apple store, Google Play, Amazon app store, etc.).
The digital marketing manager should have the knowledge and market insights to suggest the best approach.
Digital Marketing Manager Requirements
To work as a digital marketing manager, you must have proper education and experience.
Education and Certification
With education, we don’t necessarily mean having a marketing-related degree. Although it’s a plus to have a degree in marketing or digital media, it’s not a strict requirement.
College graduates (or anyone) can go through a digital marketing course to learn how digital marketing works.
Then, you can pursue an accredited digital marketing certification to verify your skills and prove to future employers or clients that you have the necessary education to work as a digital marketing manager.
Working Experience
What is equally important for making a career in digital marketing is experience. A digital marketing manager should have adequate experience with all digital marketing techniques.
This is necessary for two reasons:
The first reason is for running successful campaigns. To get to the point of maximizing the performance of your campaigns, you need to do a lot of practice and testing.
This is a task that takes time, but while doing it, you gain valuable experience.
The second reason is to manage the experts in your team properly. It’s not enough to have people management skills to lead the digital marketing team; you also need to have the necessary technical skills.
For example, to guide and mentor your SEO manager, you need to have working experience with SEO.
So, if you’re considering entering the digital marketing industry as a ‘manager’, remember that it’s not like other professions where a manager's job is mostly to manage people and resources.
Digital Marketing Manager Skills
Besides technical and team management skills, a digital marketing manager should also have good communication and organizational skills.
Some of the tasks that a marketing manager is expected to perform are:
Talking to the client – Communicate with the client and explain to them the benefits of digital marketing as a whole and, most importantly, the benefits and gains for their businesses.
Design the digital marketing strategy – Use all the tools in his arsenal to create a complete strategy for promoting a business online.
Communicate the strategy to the client and interested parties – Explain the strategy to the client and other interested parties (for example, the experts and managers in his team).
Monitor the execution of the plan – Monitor the execution of the digital marketing plan to ensure everything is executed correctly and on time.
Optimize the strategy for even better results – Optimize the strategy based on current results.
Digital Marketing Manager Salary
How much money do digital marketing managers make? A recent study shows that the average salary of a Digital Marketing Manager is $97K per year.
How much you can earn depends on experience, the size of your company, the type of clients, and success stories.
Unlike 'offline' marketing, everything in digital marketing is measurable, and digital marketing managers who have a proven record of increasing traffic and conversions of business are more likely to earn more than managers who only know the theoretical part.
How To Become a Digital Marketing Manager?
Digital marketing is not a theoretical concept; it's practical. It's not enough to know the theories behind the different digital marketing techniques; you must know how to implement them.
A digital marketing manager needs to have practical skills, which means that taking a course on Digital Marketing is a good starting point but not enough.
My recommendation on how to become a digital marketing manager is the following:
Become an SEO Expert - Learn everything you can about SEO and start practicing by creating your own website.
Understand how social media works - Spend some time on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn and find out everything you can about their advertising platforms.
Become a Google Ads Expert - Get certified on Google Ads. PPC advertising is a core component of digital marketing.
Master email and content marketing - Good content is vital for the success of any campaign, and email is still one of the most effective ways to make conversions.
Learn how to use Google Analytics - Monitoring and reporting is part of the job responsibilities of a DM.
Learn from experienced digital marketers - if you have the opportunity, apply for an entry-level digital marketing job in a company with experienced managers. If not, try to follow the work of other marketers and, where possible, replicate their steps (not copy).
Becoming an expert in all digital marketing components will take time, but unlike other professions, you can gradually acquire these skills without needing a special educational background.
Conclusion
A digital marketing manager is not just an expert in one digital marketing discipline, but he/she needs to have a range of skills that relate to the different ways you can promote a website online and skills that relate to planning, project control, and team management.
In my opinion and experience, you cannot become a good digital marketing manager if you don’t have a deep knowledge of SEO.
SEO is the most important skill you need first, and then you can build your knowledge for the rest.
If you don’t have a good SEO foundation, then it will be tough to become a successful digital marketing manager.
